Poor score on diplomatic count: India has only 845 diplomats while US has around 20,000

NEW DELHI: It may aspire to rub shoulders with the likes of US and China at the high table of global superpowers, but India's ambitions have one serious problem - the world's largest democracy has a crippling shortage of diplomats.

At 845 diplomats, India's diplomatic bench strength — at one for 1.4 million residents — is slightly better than that of Singapore, which has 790 diplomats representing around 5 million people, or New Zealand, which also has a similar number for some 4.4 million.

The number looks especially unflattering when compared with other emerging powers such as China or Brazil, and downright puny when compared with developed nations such as the US or France. China, for instance, has some 6,200 diplomats while Brazil has 3,000. The US and France have about 20,000 and 6,000 diplomats, respectively.

Recruitment is at a trickle — the ministry recruited a record 38 people in 2012 and 35 in 2011, some of whom have already dropped out - and the foreign ministry stares at the prospect of an already thin diplomatic corps thinning further in the years ahead."There was a lack of farsightedness in recruitment that resulted in today's situation," says one foreign service official asking not to be named.

While the quantum of recruitments were sufficient in 1970s and 1980s, they were simply not enough for the post-liberalisation era when the economic expansion and the resultant explosion of jobs and salaries saw the civil services become less and less the career of choice for young people.

With several diplomats who joined the foreign service in the 1970s and early 1980s set to retire in the next two to three years, there is an urgent need to boost the numbers. The shortage is particularly acute at the level of deputy secretaries and directors.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has woken up to the issue and is working on a plan to increase the number of its diplomats, offering them specialisation in international issues such as climate change, disarmament, cyber security and global trade issues, officials said. Currently, Indian Administrative Service, or IAS, officers handle some of these issues in Indian embassies in various countries.

The Indian Revenue Service and Customs Department too have been pushing their cadres in Indian missions abroad, officials said. MEA is the only Indian ministry besides Railways to have its own cadre. India currently has 180 missions and posts abroad. Sujatha Singh, India's new foreign secretary, convened an open house on the issue at MEA headquarters, where groups of young diplomats were formed to suggest formulae to increase manpower and create specialists in India Foreign Service.

There was a proposal of mentoring young IFS officers by their seniors. Other suggestions that came up in the MEA open house included introduction of more mid-career training courses for IFS officers and slashing time frame of initial training to probationers by Foreign Service Institute, Delhi. "Many countries have three mid-career training courses for their diplomats.

We can emulate this model till a diplomat attains the level of an additional secretary," a South Block official said. "Currently there is only one mid-career training program for an Indian diplomat," the official said. In its annual report for 2012-13, the foreign ministry said a comprehensive Indian Foreign Service Cadre expansion exercise has been underway since 2008 in keeping with the expanding global profile and engagement of India.